Oil price rising, how surprising
Blog Post | Christine Milne
Friday 23rd May 2008, 2:11pm
by ChristineMilne in
This piece was published today on Crikey's daily email. Also see my media release from this morning on the issue.
I have to confess myself quite flabbergasted by the extent to which our governments, oppositions, economists, planners and media claim to have been caught unawares by the rocketing global oil price and imply that no one could have seen it coming.
Not that I am surprised by their position – after all, they rely on ABARE. I have challenged ABARE at every Estimates hearing for two years and more as to their long-term estimates of oil price, and got the same answer each time - $40-45. Even as the price hit $100 early this year, they stuck firm to their projection. And yet ABARE continues to command more respect than the Association for the Study of Peak Oil (ASPO), which has been spot on in its forecasts.
But, just as the reality of climate change is only now sinking in, years after the science was settled and the urgency unquestionable, no-one can truly claim that they weren’t warned about peak oil.
One of my first actions after being elected to the Senate was to instigate a Senate Inquiry into Australia’s Future Oil Supply and Alternative Transport Fuels. In this Inquiry, everyone from Iranian oil guru, Dr Bakhtiari, to public transport groups, to the Councils of Western Sydney, to ASPO and many more, were all calling for the same thing: a rapid shift to mass transit, higher vehicle fuel efficiency standards, an end to the Fringe Benefits tax concession on motor vehicles and accelerated R&D into second generation biofuels.
The Inquiry’s conclusion which was tabled well over a year ago, involved Liberal, Labor and Greens in a consensus report making all these key recommendations. Then the old parties buried it. But, just as geosequestered CO2 will, it is now bubbling to the surface.
A few months later, I released a major publication, Re-Energising Australia, which presented a comprehensive policy platform to deal with the twin challenges of climate change and peak oil and build a better, cleaner, cleverer Australia. The considerable discussion this report garnered means it cannot have completely passed everyone by.
During last year’s election campaign, and as oil passed $100 early this year, I and many others repeatedly called for action to deal with peak oil and climate change together. And then, in my Budget Reply last week, I started with a reference to dwindling oil supplies matching the threat of Arctic Ice melt, and repeated my calls made in the 2006 Budget Reply, to use the surplus to oil-proof Australia.
The Prime Minister cannot legitimately say he has done all he can when he is making decisions now that will make the situation worse. Last week’s Budget allocated to rail a tiny 5% of what was given to roads in the next year. $78 million on metro public transport is whistling in the wind. The much-vaunted Green Car program doesn’t even start until 2011, after the next election. Infrastructure Australia and the Building Australia Fund only have to consider climate change at the discretion of the Minister and peak oil not at all.
To suggest that a price-watch program is all he can do, whilst waiting for Martin Ferguson’s energy security plan, is disingenuous. Particularly given that leaving the Minister for Coal in charge of resource planning is letting the cat guard the cream. Ferguson is already talking up liquefying coal to make a hugely polluting transport fuel.
As the Senate Inquiry said, no plan for peak oil should make climate change worse, yet this is precisely what the Rudd Government is on track to do, with the support of the Coalition, who want to exclude transport from the effort to reduce greenhouse emissions.
What about mandatory vehicle fuel efficiency standards and ending the fringe benefits tax concession for vehicles? What about tying subsidies to car manufacturers to increased efficiency? What about an immediate multi-billion dollar investment into mass transit, cycleways and redesigning cities?
The great thing about climate change and peak oil is that the solutions are the same for both, and that these solutions will lead to a better quality of life in cities, better air quality, a healthier population and a more connected community. The re-design of cities will see more walkways, bicycle paths and localism as we move to urban villages linked by rapid mass transit, and as we encourage businesses to take their jobs to where the people are. It’s a chance to get off the treadmill if we embrace it.
As Einstein said, you cannot solve a problem with the same thinking that created it. Those who now finally realise what we are facing should involve the people who saw the problem coming and listen to the solutions that we have advocated. Only then can we sweep aside the failure of imagination and the refusal to leave the fossil fuel age, and get on with building the post-carbon world.
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obviously this is off topic
obviously this is off topic but I wanted to pass on my condolences to Bob re the Wielangta State Forest.
I hope that it will be some consolation that when the final analysis is rendered the account he gave will be remembered as truly heroic.
Perhaps I shouldn't say
Perhaps I shouldn't say this... but I really can't help thinking "bring on $200/bbl". Or $400. Maybe, just maybe, that incredible wake up call will make these people realise their whole world view is based on an illusion. Public transport will be far quicker to supply than CTL, after all...
It's almost worst case scenario, but I have so little hope left that logic, reason, and evidence will ever work in this country.
PS - why do we even have a
PS - why do we even have a 'Minister for Resources *AND* Energy', as if they were inherently related? It merely underscores the myopia that afflicts this and the previous government: energy=burning-something-we-dug-out-the-ground.
The trade with Oil is not
The trade with Oil is not very old. If the prices are so high, what will the future be? We should all start to force the gasoline industries to do more research with alternative energy.
But the economists told them
But the economists told them cheap oil would be forever!
Some useful quotes from a more switched-on economist, JK Galbraith
"The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable."
"Faced with the choice between changing one's mind and proving there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof."
"All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership."
[...] Oil price rising, how
[...] Oil price rising, how surprising « GreensBlog - the official blog of the Australian Greens Senators I have to confess myself quite flabbergasted by the extent to which our governments, oppositions, economists, planners and media claim to have been caught unawares by the rocketing global oil price and imply that no one could have seen it coming. [...]
The oil price. It's been
The oil price. It's been poorly predicted, I agree. Back in 1999, the analysts' talk was of no floor above $5 a barrel.
Here's one geologist's view.
On Q&A the other night Rudd
On Q&A the other night Rudd managed to avoid using the words peak oil.
I have suggested previously that rationing
planning is urgently needed.
The coming government access card for
amongst other things medicare could be used to ration petrol.
Swipe the card at the service station and
your buy amount is deducted from your
yearly ration. Could easily be used to buy
unwanted ration from other people.
The reaction I have had from pollies is hmmm. Oh well.
For politicians to say they
For politicians to say they didn't see any of this coming is almost criminal. There are several politicians including Mike Kelly who know all about Peak Oil and there have been studies done in Queensland and South Australia.
I'm just a simple bloke from the 'burbs of Sydney and I would call myself 100% PO aware. How can it be that these people with all the access to information that they have and all the backroomers to pass it on that they knew nothing. I am ashamed of these so called representatives of the people. I hope their inaction comes back to bite them with a vengence!
Keep fighting the good fight Greens. Get in front of a camera and talk, talk, talk about Peak Oil. Remember it's not a theory, it's reality.
"How can it be that these
"How can it be that these people with all the access to information that they have and all the backroomers to pass it on that they knew nothing."
Well, some people claimed they never knew that Hitler was going to try to conquer Europe and murder everyone, or that they never knew tobacco would give you lung cancer, or that they never knew Agent Orange would give you deformed babies, or that they never knew the West was lying about WMDs in Iraq, or...
There are lots of things which people know but choose to ignore because acting on them would be inconvenient and difficult.
Also, government is made up of a lot of people, and large groups have quite some inertia. Have you ever gone to the pictures in a group of a dozen and then tried to get them to agree on which movie to see? Or tried to sort out the bill after a dinner party at a restaurant? Now imagine that with 225 federal and 1,000 or so state politicians... and a more complex decision than what movie to watch or who had the caesar salad.
Great Galbraith quotes,
Great Galbraith quotes, Kiashu!
Furious as we may be over
Furious as we may be over the issues surrounding the price of oil and the fact that the dual problems of climate change and peak oil are solvable with the same solutions, the reality is that neither governments nor corporations will allow anything concrete to be done about reducing our reliance on oil until the very last drop is used or until climate change bites so hard that they have no choice but to be seen to be doing something (by which time it will be way too late). What [in particular] oil companies have at the moment is a rising demand for an increasingly scarce commodity which means higher profits for them. Trying to stop oil usage at the moment would be as difficult as telling fosickers to drop their gold nuggets and walk away from a gold rush.
Furthermore, when they (oil companies, car manufacturers, etc) decide that the time has come to finally let go of their black gold, they don't want a cheap, available-to-all, no-profit solution conceived and implemented by someone other than them. They have a captive market and they aren't going to give it up easily. At some point, I think there will be a contrived "crunch day" when there will be a mass release of one or more solutions of their own devise. Maybe a hydrogen car, maybe some super efficient solar vehicle, probably both and probably something else as well.
One thing is for sure, though; however these solutions manifest themselves, the companies that produce them will make damn sure that Joe Enduser is charged good and proper for the privilege of their use/ownership. Whatever they come up with may or may not be the best solution(s) to the problems of climate change and peak oil but they will be enough for the problems to have been seen to be solved. The real solutions (mass transport, bicycles, restructuring for higher density living, etc) may also be profitable but not necessarily profitable for them and likely not as profitable as keeping people in personal transport over large distances.
For my money, I will take the real solutions any day and I sincerely hope that they come to fruition. In the mean time, I hope that the people doing the good work of trying to steer us in the right direction, like the Greens, have the artillery to deal with these kinds of issues.
Going solar electrical
Going solar electrical immediately may not be the carbon friendly way
Mobile phones with no batteries, cordless electric drills which work harder and longer, full sized high powered cordless vacuum cleaners, these are some of the appliances now on the market around the world but not yet seen in Australia. This is the result of a break through in electrical energy storage technology called “the super capacitor”. Super capacitors never need replacing and charge and discharge very quickly and have very high energy storage capacities for volume and increasing with development.
There has never been any difficulty in generating renewable energy it has been the difficulty of storing electrical energy with current technology to iron out the vagaries of nature’s erratic energy delivery pattern and to supply instantaneous load currents which super capacitance technology fulfils. By building super capacitance into our day to day household appliances we would effectively bit by bit increasing the electrical storage of the electrical supply system and when multiplied by the millions of consumers this would amount to a huge electrical storage capacity. Such capacity would enable the introduction of smaller more efficient renewable energy home packs a little later on. Also, as this new technology works at a lower and much safer voltage, it would be an opportunity to phase out the current household 240VAC distribution system that we now use for a 50 VDC system which is a better match to most new home technology.
Current home power generation such as solar and wind should not ignored but taken up by those in the community that have the means and enough expertise to manage. For industry the recent installation of a industrial capacity wind turbine by a Tasmanian poultry processor is positive step in the direction of the future, generate and use power in the same location it has the least losses and I have no doubt super capacitance will further use of these types of installations eliminating battery banks.
It should always be remembered, upgrading the passive energy performance of buildings is the greatest energy saver of all and if implemented in a progressive way carbon neutral. By upgrading building performance the high users of energy are reduced. This further enables home renewable electrical energy generation viable.
[...] denial about Peak Oil
[...] denial about Peak Oil and the global energy crisis. I’m not surprised to have stumbled upon this blog post by Green’s Senator Christine [...]
[...] Christine Milne,
[...] Christine Milne, (Australian Greens), interviewed recently ..just as the reality of climate change is only now sinking in, years after the science was settled [...]
I really hear the price of
I really hear the price of oil is going up due to speculation, not so much over supply and demand. (Similarly true of other commodities like property and food.) "Peak Oil" and supply issues are the pretext - definately substance to it - but the price is far exaggerated.
Some interesting comments made here:
http://www.accuracy.org/newsrelease.php?articleId=1719
I have hear similar points elsewhere recently.
“All of the great leaders
“All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership.”
Thanks to Kiashu for the Galbraith quote. If Kevin Rudd had any ambition to elevate himself to the status of “great” then he would recognize that “peak oil” and “global warming” were in fact connected and he would immediately strive to see if solutions mooted elsewhere could be applied in Australia. Unfortunately for him, and for us, he does not seem to have any such delusions of grandeur.
However in the US those with ambition enough to want the job of president have spoken out. Several politicians have outlined a plan for the future whereby America can be weaned off imported oil and can encourage the development of green energy sources without resort to large centralized coal or nuclear power stations.
Step one in the process of solving this problem in the Australian context is to firstly recognize what the problem is. Step two is to draw up a plan of attack based on national need not on the relative strengths of vested interests.
The US plan is to electrify transport and to connect cars to the grid to help it develop into a more efficient, reliable and diversified broadband controlled network. This plan is ambitious but it might just work.
There are two very important predictions made by two prestigious American companies that support this plan. The GM Company predicts that its plug-in Chevy-Volt will cost about one tenth as much as the petrol equivalent to run and theXcel Energy power company predicts that it will be able to pay the owners of plug-in cars from $2,000 to $4,000 per year for access to their plugged-in car.
The US plan needs to be checked out urgently. With oil prices doubling every two years and global warming threatening us all, no prime minister worth his salt should say he has ‘done all he can’ without checking it out. The plan may be the way forward. It may have flaws but if it is good enough for the US it should be worth checking out. This is perhaps Kevin Rudd’s chance to rise to the status “great leader”.
[...] Australia, as Greens
[...] Australia, as Greens Senator Christine Milne pointed out recently, our National Goverment has been relying on advice from ABARE (Australian Bureau of Agricultural [...]
With all due respect to
With all due respect to Christine, the Queensland Greens did a wonderful job denying Peak Oil way back in 2003 when I first bounced it around the party room as an election issue. The QGs were no more likely to rattle cages than anybody else!
I left in disgust, and the Party was actually split..... but let's not go there.
As I have said many times elsewhere on these blogs, Peak Oil has no solution, which is why it's ignored. Til now. I alwayse knew it would take the shit hitting the fan to get some action, and here we are...
I started a forum for Peakniks a few years ago, and we have global networks on everything 'energy' (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/roeoz).
Here is a post that came up from GERMANY last night:
Morning All....
Is life about to get more interesting!! Fatih Birol is the head of the
International Energy Authority.
>>>>>>
Hi guys
Just to let you know, the main German channel 2 (ZDF) has just 30 minutes
ago screened and interview with the Energy Watch group guys from Munich and
Fatih Birol in preparation for the September/October report and a
documentary announcing Peak Oil to the public.
FB: Quotes: "I hope there will be no supply shortages.", "There is no reason
to panic."
An associated documentary states:
"Petrol is expected to rise to $20/litre and only affordable by the rich."
"Crude will rise by 30% a year from now on."
"Barclay's capital expert confirms $200 oil prediction soon."
"Oil is running out and nobody is prepared."
"This is the first time the IEA did research itself and not accepted oil
industry figures and they confirm the worst fears."
Things will get more interesting.
To Colin @16, of course the
To Colin @16, of course the price of oil has gone up because of speculation. And why is there speculation? PEAK OIL that's why!
I don't think people (here and elsewhere) have ANY idea of the urgency of the problem. Here we have Martin Ferguson worrying about a $25 billion deficit by 2015, when if fact it's highly likely it will be impossible for us to import ANY oil, at ANY PRICE, whilst we are floundering with barely 10% of what we currently consume.......... and when is this likely? 2012.
Don't believe me? Read this:
http://anz.theoildrum.com/node/3657
Ted @ 17 wrote: The US plan
Ted @ 17 wrote: The US plan is to electrify transport and to connect cars to the grid to help it develop into a more efficient, reliable and diversified broadband controlled network. This plan is ambitious but it might just work.
With coal and nukes? And for how long? Ever heard of Limits to growth?
If we replaced oil energy with nukes, Uranium would last SIX YEARS. Globally.
Peal Coal is expected by 2035 at the latest.
And roads are made of oil... known as bitumen.
Wasting more resources on cars is nothing short of criminal.
So the geological reality of
So the geological reality of the limited supply of oil is starting to have sufficient impact that even the politicians are reacting. There is much sense in many of the comments posted here but there is also nonsense. Climate change has been initiated by the global burning of fossil fuels to provide the energy that has driven the growth of industrial civilization. Society will react as best they can to the increasing scarcity of oil because they have little alternative. But society can do little to mitigate climate change even if there were global agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. We are going to have to adapt to what industrial civilization has already done. That will require understanding rather than the misleading view that we can control our climate.
Peak coal 2035 at latest!
Peak coal 2035 at latest! Interesting. I heard 2070 was the earliest date for peak coal and even the 2070 date was controversial since industry says we have centuries before peak coal.
Can you send anything at all through supporting the 2035 date as the "latest" date for peak coal?
Despite our amazing capacity for destruction I doubt in 25 years we could reach peak coal.
If all fossilised energy stores were released the planet would be transformed far beyond what the most gloomy anticipate this century. I hear we would be looking at a 20C or more rise. It will be extremely challenging to locate and burn ALL the fossil fuel.
I am outraged Australia isn't using its great surpluses to end our domestic reliance on fossil fuels within mere decades. Every year we delay commencement of that quest, the task will get harder in an exponential way and will take longer to achieve by much more than the start delay.
Greetings fellow 'living
Greetings fellow 'living will envy the dead' co-habitants.
The Greens are not the solution, but part of the problem because they support the status quo; How ? By ignoring ex-green members who warned of and wanted to make central party issues about Peak Oil and the ramifications, so Christine Milne’s claim (on behalf of The Greens) of 2 years pressure is laughable.
Did you know 'we' (Australians) had an National Energy Conservation Program 'to create public awarness of the need to conserve liquid fuels' in 1979 ?
Peak Oil was known then, but who squashed it ?
I like Barry White’s suggestion of Medicare Card energy allocations; Poor people (who cant afford a car) could ‘sell’ their allocation to the highest bidder, improving their quality of living by supporting the organic foods industry selling nurturing foods, cutting the nations health bills by the hundred of billions of dollars.
Turnpike suggests some ‘super capacitors’, that solar power is not the best choice; so what is the embodied energy of these super capacitors … what is the pay-back time when they pay for their cost ? We know roughly what they are for PV's
Colin suggests speculation is driving up fuel costs and he is half right, only that those who have speculated in oil search and extraction can’t find anymore or it cost more to extract it than it will bring on the market place.
Simply speaking, would you sell me a watermelon for $1 if it cost you $3 to grow, water, harvest, store and transport ? No.
Its not so much that we can say no to energy from fossil fuel, we are addicted ! Try it, stop driving today, don’t buy food, pay for water, cut yourself out of the consumer loop right now … impossible you say ? Well within one generation, we will see consumption forcibly drop by at the very least, 70% !
Ted 17 says GM will produce electric cars and all will be OK, but what about the embodied energy to manufacture those cars first / where will the energy come from to make those cars ? Fossile Fuels ! [The USA new car market is around the order of 16 million a year]
We use 86 million barrels of oil a day, to get that ‘same’ energy from electricity we need 6,240 electricity power stations (all run on either coal, gas and yes, oil; biofuel would be less than 0.0000000000000000000000001% - what about blobal warming then ?)
Or about 5 trillion 500 million photovoltaic / solar panels;
Or 240 Three Gorges Dams
Or 4 trillion 800 million acres of corn for ethanol (how do we harvest it etc ... surprise, surprise Fossil Fuels again)
Or 3,120 nuclear power plants (which are proven to use more energy to build commission, decommission than the entire energy they will create - forget the nuclear waste)
Does anyone have the answer ? Yes, on www.energyefficienthomedesign.com.au (my website) I can provide you - free -with some of the details of the energy bus that will hit you.
Best of luck
Daniel Boon
Re Peak Coal, try this
Re Peak Coal, try this http://www.energybulletin.net/29919.html
Daniel Boon....... you have
Daniel Boon....... you have all the answers? The mind boggles....
Mike you are a classic. He
Mike you are a classic. He said he can provide *some* of the details. No doubt he can. No where did he say he had *all* the answers.
Please do send on the basis for your case for 2035 as the latest date for peak coal.
The trouble with making wild statements is that if you can't justify them then it reduces the credibility of *EVERYTHING* you say.
French Farmer Youth fight
French Farmer Youth fight petroleum hikes: riot police
May 28th, 2008
In Lille, France, about 40 youths calling themselves "Jeunes agriculteurs" (Young Farmers), pulled a tractor through the town on a rope to educate the public on the impact that petroleum hikes are having on food production and farmers. More robust simultaneous actions in other French towns came into conflict with police...also in Bulgaria. And all-night gas queues in Taiwan.
More at www.candobetter.org along with other articles fed from the French Press and more Australian news about housing, oil depletion, biodiversity and democracy
Apologies Mike S and Bobo.
Apologies Mike S and Bobo. That comment of Mike's went into our spaminator for no apparent reason. Rescued now.
Yesterday, Crikey spoke with
Yesterday, Crikey spoke with Senator Milne, who put forward a far more coherent proposal to address this [Peak Oil] than we've heard in this debate from either major party.
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